[instrumental music] Growth, just in general, has become both easier and harder at the same time. There's just so many channels, so many audiences to reach, so much content being generated.
On a given month, you know, we're generating fifty million impressions across all those brands and channels that I mentioned. You said, wait, you said fifty million impressions a month? Fifty million impressions a month.
What are kind of the first principles of audience development as an independent creator? How we think about audience development is really threefold. One is [instrumental music]
Welcome back to the Creators Spotlight podcast. My name is Francis Zier, and today we're speaking with Jonathan Hunt, VP of HubSpot Media.
He's been working in media for the better part of two decades behind the scenes at companies including Vice, Vox, Nat Geo, and Complex.
We spoke about his approach to audience development and how HubSpot approaches acquiring and/or working with independent media brands and creators. Enjoy.
[instrumental music] Looking at your LinkedIn, you have held-- you've, you've got a, you've got a great history in media. Um, you've held a couple roles specifically with audience development in the title.
I imagine that you've done audience development in more than just these roles. Um, specifically at Complex, you were the EVP of Marketing Communications and Audience Development. You were there for about three years.
And at National Geographic, you were SVP Digital Strategy and Audience Development. Uh, you were there for just under two years.
So my question to start it off is how would you describe what audience development is as a category of work maybe to somebody who doesn't work in media? Yeah.
I mean, the way that we define audience development and how I've really approached it throughout my career is, as the name implies, you're really
approaching growth through the needs and the interests and what you know about the audience you're trying to, to reach, right? And so that becomes your compass that inform things like content creation- Mm-hmm...
the channels that you ultimately, uh, market through, um, how you think about targeting, asset development, and so forth.
And so, you know, within HubSpot Media, how we think about audience development is really threefold. One is an insights feedback loop.
So us being able to understand a bunch of different intent signals, so search-based intent signals, LLM-based intent signals, uh, influence-based intent signals gleaned from, uh, you know, sources like YouTube Studio or Beehiiv, et cetera, to be able to then work directly with our content creators, whether it's, um, a producer, a writer, an editor, to just give them as much insight as possible to be able to think of new ways of reaching the audience that they're going after, informed by that data.
Mm-hmm. That's one piece. The other piece is ultimately being able to grow your distribution, and, um, the way that you've always been able to do that is usually through own and operate channels, paid media.
Um, more so it's also through, um, you know, partnerships, um, so with like-minded publishers, um, through, um, LLMs as well, through AEL. Mm-hmm.
So being able to sort of influence how you're showing up within ChatGPT, Perplexity, um, Claude, et cetera, so that whenever someone searches for something that's relevant to your brand, um, you show up ideally first.
And then the last piece is, uh, our creators program- Mm-hmm...
um, which is obviously, I think, really relevant for this conversation, which is how we work with external third-party experts, um, in the fields of marketing, sales, AI, entrepreneurship, and so on, to be able to reach their audiences, um, and to do that in a really authentic way, uh, and to do that across platforms like email, um, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
Uh, and so that's how we think about audience development today. I think oftentimes people kinda conflate audience development with just social or marketing.
You know, I would almost argue that audience development, especially in, um, the modern media marketing climate, is becoming a lot more influential in how you, um, diversify traffic, uh, how you compete, right?
Because there's just so much saturation in terms of, uh, media brands, content creation, and so you really have to be very surgical in terms of what you're creating and how you're distributing it.
So, okay, so the way you're describing it, um, I, I wanna try to translate this now into like- Yeah... maybe for an independent creator, right? You're describing very- Yeah...
sophisticated, large operation, uh, that's both for the media properties under HubSpot Media as well as for HubSpot itself. Very complicated. Yeah.
Um, for somebody maybe who is an independent creator, maybe they have a newsletter, it's like a thousand subscribers up to- Yeah... I don't know, twenty thousand, but maybe it's just them doing it, right?
What are kind of the first principles of audience development that somebody needs to like, to kind of make their operation a little bit more sophisticated as an independent creator? Yeah.
I would say, look, growth just in general has become both easier and harder at the same time. Mm-hmm. Um, especially if you rely on paid media to grow.
Like, the rates have just become pretty unaffordable, especially for smaller creators, and there's much more saturation and competition, especially in, um, direct response environments. Mm-hmm.
And so oftentimes what that means is, you know, operating like a scrappy small marketing and media team, which oftentimes creators have to do.
And so what that means is being able to identify partnerships with other relevant publications- Mm-hmm... that share similar audience interests, and being able to work with them to, um, build together. So,
you know, simple things like swaps, um, guest op-eds, guest con-contributions, et cetera.
Ways to shift and migrate audiences between like-minded media products to be able to grow your subs base, whether you're on YouTube or you're operating a newsletter, and vice versa.
Um, the other thing too is, um, diversification. And so I realize that can be really tough sometimes, especially for smaller creators that are focused on a single channel.
But again, in a world whereThere's just so many channels, so many audiences to reach, so much content being generated.
Um, being able to reach your audience across more than just one singular channel, whether you're a newsletter operator or a YouTube creator, and being able to take your expertise and your IP, repackage it, and expand it into new ways to reach those audiences, it creates just more moats and makes your business harder to challenge, but also allows you to, to get in front of more people, and again, push audiences back and forth.
So say, for example, if you're a newsletter operator or creator on Beehiiv, being able to also find an opportunity to, to take that expertise and that content, that editorial strategy and translate it for building out a presence on LinkedIn or building out a presence on YouTube.
Mm. Because those ultimately then also become marketing channels for you to push audiences back to your newsletter, creating this kind of flywheel.
And so that's how we approach it, even though we're not necessarily, uh, a small independent creator or a smaller media company, but I think the, the strategy still applies no matter- Mm... what size you are.
The lines are blurred. We're all competing for the same attention. I, yeah, no, I know. I know.
And um, you know, I think what's most interesting right now to me is that model of independent creator becoming the media company, and you see so many fantastic examples of really smart, um, well-sourced journalists that are defecting from traditional media- Mm...
and going to platforms, you know, like Beehiiv or YouTube, uh, or LinkedIn, and building up a business from, um, just their trust and their expertise. Yeah.
Uh, I wanna get into that in a little bit, but we should also- Yeah... talk, uh, briefly, contextualize everything you do. So you are VP of media at- Sure... the VP of HubSpot Media, right?
And you're the head of The Hustle. Yeah. Um, this, this is a pretty big operation. There's, I think there's The Hustle, My First Million, which is sort of part of The Hustle, Marketing Against The Grain. Yeah.
There's, uh, Mindstream. We've talked to Adam Biddlecome before. That was a really popular episode. Yeah. And then there's, I think probably dozens- Thousands [laughs]... if not more of- Yeah. [laughs]...
things I don't know about. Yeah. So describe briefly for the listener, like what exactly you do in your role today. I think you described it a little bit in the audience development, um- Yeah...
bit a second ago, but what is the breadth of what you do? Yeah. So, um, I guess the TLDR is I lead a media company within a B2B company called HubSpot. Mm.
Um, so I think a lot of people are familiar with HubSpot, but maybe they're not as familiar with how we approach marketing HubSpot.
And I think traditionally within B2B companies or other CRMs, what you find is that, you know, there's a very kind of, um, formula playbook, right? Mm.
Like, you have direct response, you have big brand campaigns, you have celebrities as part of those big brand campaigns, um, you have, you know, customer enablement, et cetera, et cetera.
But oftentimes what you don't have is a really strong owned and operated media network- Mm... that allows you to continuously build audience, but also market to those audiences.
So what we've built here is an editorially independent media company that is comprised of about 60 people across, um, a structure that you would find in any, like, mid-sized to large-sized media company. Mm-hmm.
You have a content operation, so those are, um, you know, video producers, writers, editors, um, visual effects artists, on-screen talent as well. Yeah. Um, and they don't come from B2B companies.
Uh, they come from places like, uh, Axios, Business Insider, The Onion, Vox, like folks that have done this for B2C media companies doing it for a B2B media company, and they're doing that at scale across platforms like YouTube, newsletter, website, podcasts.
And so today we have about, you know, 10 different owned YouTube channels across different categories like marketing, and sales, and entrepreneurship, and AI.
Uh, we have about four to five newsletters, um, across those same categories. We have a website. We have about five podcasts as well. Um, so that's one team, the content team. Mm.
We have a monetization team, and so, you know, historically with most traditional media models, that monetization team is out, like, pounding pavement and trying to close deals and get advertisers to advertise across their media products.
I think what's unique about our business model is that we're not an impressions-based media model, so we're not incentivizing content creators to just go out there and try to create as many impressions as possible- Mm...
so that our sales team can then go and monetize those impressions, um, or squeeze more pennies out of the RPM.
What we're trying to do is we're trying to develop really high quality, high intent audiences that then we can put a resource in front of that feels very editorialized, uh, and utilitarian so that you then click on that resource and then give us enough contact information so that our sales team can the- go and then nurture you hopefully into a customer for HubSpot.
And so that's what the monetization team focuses on across all of our different media brands and channels. Hmm. And then you have the audience development- Wait, one, one, wait, sorry Yeah.
One, one thing really quick there- Yeah... and then, and then I'll- Yeah... come back to, you said audience development team. Sure. So you had a LinkedIn- Yeah...
post a couple of months ago saying that YouTube right now is HubSpot Media's number one area for content and monetization investment- Yeah...
which made me curious more about, like, the degree to which, is there any more direct monetization you're after? Is that a KPI that you guys have on the team?
Or is it all more like, no, this is a, a funnel for, for HubSpot software products and, and, like, there is... Like, I mean, you probably are directly- Yeah...
monetizing on YouTube, though, and I know, I know Beehiiv has run ads with, uh, with- Yeah... My First Million, for example.
So tell me about the relationship between, like, monetization in terms of being paid to advertise a product versus monetization that is marketing for HubSpot Media that HubSpot is paying for by just funding this business.
Yeah. Yeah, so just to be clear, you know, we don't work directly with third party advertisers- Yeah... to advertise against our inventory.
Um, but to your point, we're really focused on generating business for our business, but that happens in a couple of different ways.
We talked a bit about demand generation, so, you know, we call them leads or qualified leads.
Um, we're able to measure that all the way to the amount of monthly reoccurring revenue and annual reoccurring revenue that those media products are able to drive for HubSpot the business on a monthly- Yeah...
and annual basis. HubSpot, famously a product that's very good at tracking these kind of things in the first place. [laughs] Well, I mean, yeah, exactly.
Like, you would hope that we would have a good measurement solution for doing all this. Uh, but in addition to that, what we're also measuring is the brand influence of these media investments.
So on a given month, you know, we're generating 50 million impressions across all those brands and channels that I mentioned. Hmm.
Those are obviously driving-Uh, awareness and consideration and association of those media products to HubSpot to help people continue to think about our product while they're maybe not in the consideration cycle, so that they, when they are in the consideration cycle, we're part of their day one list and they choose HubSpot maybe over one of our competitors.
Um- You said, wait, you said 50 million impressions a month? 50 million impressions a month. Across the whole portfolio. Wow. Across the whole portfolio.
You know, definitely with the bulk of those coming from YouTube, email, and podcasts at the moment. Mm-hmm.
Um, and then in addition to that, you know, we're also generating a lot of just, um, you know, earned media for HubSpot, like media that you would have to go otherwise buy if you were running a traditional paid marketing playbook.
And so there's all these, um, additional ways that I think we're able to value media investment within HubSpot that isn't so exclusively last touch and- Mm...
attributable to immediate demand, but also just improves how people, uh, are aware of, but also think about HubSpot across the entire year. Yeah.
Uh, as an aside, it, it's funny, I was at a Mets game, um, on, on Tuesday a few days ago, and I was catching up with a friend, sitting next to, sitting next to her, and, um, I was saying, "Oh, I'm interviewing this guy, uh, later this week," you know.
Yeah. "Media at HubSpot," and she hadn't heard of HubSpot. Um, and so I was describing it a bit, but I was like, "Oh, look, their, their logo's right there."
[laughs] Because there was like six HubSpot logos on, uh, on the, the wall, [laughs] like across the field. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, if you're enjoying this conversation, consider subscribing to the podcast.
We release a new episode every Tuesday. All right, back to the show. I read a piece by Simon Owens, who writes the excellent- Yeah... Simon Owens Media Newsletter.
Uh, he published this like three weeks ago or so, um, about the history of, of Medium, and Medium is now a profitable business, and he kind of charts it from like why was...
how it was founded to then what went wrong and, and now how it's profitable.
But, uh, the, I think it was the current CEO of Medium was describing their creator customer base, or rather user base, the people who are using it, the platform, to publish a work that then is monetized.
He was describing them not as like full-time creators, which is usually what I'm talking to, is people who are- Yeah... some, some, somehow full-time creators.
He was saying more it's like it's the people who already have this knowledge and expertise, and so for them it's very easy to just go out and write a little bit.
Um, and they're not like [laughs] somebody like me, who's going out and like, you know, interviewing people a- and gathering that expertise and then sharing it. Uh, but I thought- Yes...
that was a really interesting definition. Um,
anyways, we are together speaking on this panel at ONA, the Online News Association conference in New Orleans a couple weeks after this comes out, and this panel is about the creator-led future of journalism.
So one way I wanted to discuss that here is you were saying a lot of the people on staff at HubSpot Media, for example, worked at Axios, these other more traditional- Yeah...
or b- you know, B2C, um, consumer media companies. Um, I think what's interesting here is there's a few different funding models for this creator-led media, right? There's advertising- Yeah...
reader subscriptions, grants, and then this kind of company ownership model that HubSpot practices, that Creator Spotlight is also too in relation to Beehiiv, right? Um, [laughs]
okay, I've said a lot, but I guess my question here is what you think of those funding models, which are the most sustainable, which will be the most successful, the most,
the most widely used over the next, let's say, five to 10 years? Yeah. Look, I think it's just tough right now to be an impressions and ads based business model.
Um, you know, it's becoming harder and harder to compete with the major hold cos in media companies, uh, like media companies in terms of like media ad agencies- Yeah... right? Who wield a lot of budget.
It's harder to compete against the platforms, which, you know, oftentimes, you know, brands are going there for the scale, but also for attribution back to like a specific KPI, and, you know, Meta, LinkedIn, X, et cetera, like they have pretty good measurement capabilities and, um, you go there for direct response.
And so the slice of the pie is just becoming smaller and smaller, yet there's more and more media companies that are fighting for that smaller and smaller slice, and, uh, they're doing so at a time whenever CPMs for them are going down, down, down.
Mm-hmm.
So like whenever you start to do the calculus, like the business model just starts to, to fracture and doesn't make as much sense as it once did, and I think that really puts the imperative on diversification beyond an ad supported media model to be able to continue to survive.
And selfishly, I, I, you know, I think that's what I really love about the model that we have at HubSpot Media, which is not having to rely on scale for the sake of generating impressions- Mm... uh, cheaply, right?
But being able to be very intentional around the audiences that you are bringing over to your media products, and really focusing on quality over scale.
Like we still have a lot of scale, don't get me wrong, but the intent and the quality of it, I would argue, is a lot higher than most traditional media businesses, and as a result, we are able to convert those audiences over to being nurtured into a lead- Mm-hmm...
and hopefully a customer of HubSpot at a much higher conversion rate than I would say like most other media companies can. And so I think
the future where companies like HubSpot or other B2B companies, um, can be another way for media to continue to survive in an editorially independent way, um, is a really interesting business model, and you see some examples of that, like, you know, with Snacks and Robinhood is one example.
There's a dozen others, and they're starting to really crop up. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And, um, I really do believe that is one future avenue. Mm-hmm.
Um, when HubSpot acquires a media company, what, like, measures have to be taken to make sure that, that it's seamless?
And specifically, I think one thing I would worry about is, uh, kind of the, the key man risk of a- any, any business where it's like one person- Yeah... and it's their voice and this...
Oftentimes it's not like really a personal brand. Sometimes it is, but it's their voice- Yeah... um, and them doing so many things. How do you make sureHow do you de risk that in an acquisition like this?
Yeah, I mean, the key man aspect, um, you know, like, is a real one.
I mean, just for like, you know, the watchers and listeners, I mean, the key man sort of aspect here is like if you are acquiring creator and it's the creator's name as the brand and they leave two years after the acquisition, does the brand and the trust in the audience go with them?
Mm-hmm. And you know, it is a consideration of ours, right? Um, I don't think it is unsolvable.
Like oftentimes how you do address that is you help them build a brand around their own personal brand and you evolve it out and you introduce new correspondents, new talent and help them expand.
So you know, uh, in the event where unfortunately like they might decide to leave and go pursue something else, the thing doesn't fall apart. Mm-hmm. So that is definitely one aspect.
But whenever we're exploring a media acquisition, like we do have a set of criterion that we kinda like check through to make sure that it is a fit and this is how we approach, you know, our MindStream acquisition, you know, which closed last October.
But you know, MindStream, you know, they're on Beehiiv with 200K subs.
Like I argue they're one of like the voice year, um, experts in, uh, AI, not just news, but also how to take what you're hearing in the world of AI and apply that today, tomorrow- Mm-hmm...
within your own, you know, business. So we sort of like identify like are these people that we like, just genuinely like we vibe with, they vibe with us. Yeah. Can we see ourselves like working with them long term?
Do we, do we each like have a spirit that like we feed off of that we think that they can learn from us, but we can also learn from them? Mm-hmm.
Um, you know, oftentimes as I mentioned before, we're doing experiments with and paid experiments to sort of understand like what is the audience like? Are they engaged? Do they even care about HubSpot?
If so, how are they converting relative to other creators partnerships that we have?
Um, you know, do they speak to an underserved audience or address a topic that maybe we aren't as big in or have as much credibility in from a media perspective, which is why the MindStream acquisition made so much sense.
Like we had AI media products, but they weren't as big and they weren't as influential as what MindStream had built.
So it just made a lot more sense for us to, um, bring them into HubSpot Media as opposed to trying to compete with them directly. Yeah.
Um, on the, the idea, the topic of diversification, um, and, and different platforms, one thing I like to talk about is this idea of content capital and how the only truly liquid form of content capital, uh, is, is an email, the CSV that you've exported and can like have on an external hard drive and load it into any ESP and, and reach those people, right?
Like I think- Yeah... you know, uh, not them saying like YouTube isn't stable, Instagram isn't stable. Like, you know, people can be banned, et cetera. Yeah. You know, I think for- Own those audiences, right? No.
I think for most- Yeah... people though it's like you do, you know, you're gonna be fine though you're vulnerable to algorithm changes, et cetera. Tell me like about that as a consideration for HubSpot.
Obviously YouTube is really important for you. Is there any world where you're like, "Oh, actually we are gonna consolidate this all into RSS or even some owned video platform that we control"?
Um, how do you think about these platform diversification risks? I just, I just think the owned video platform approach doesn't work.
Like I've seen it so many times at Vice, at other companies where I think the hubris of it all is like, "Ah, we can build it and they will come." [chuckles] You're competing with YouTube. Yeah.
And you're competing with other massive platforms that are building video products on top of it. Every social platform is a video platform today.
Why would you try to sink millions of dollars into building your own kind of like, you know, AVOD product- Yeah... uh, to be able to compete against that? Like it makes absolutely no sense.
Though the rationale that I think any media executive will give for doing that, uh, is that you own the data. Uh, and that's why obviously like CNN, Disney, et cetera, like that's why they continue to invest in that.
Yeah. Again, most media companies are not CNN and most c- m- media companies are not Disney, right?
So for media companies like ours, and I would say 99.9% of most media companies, it probably would not make sense- Yeah... to build your own video platform. It's just not gonna work.
Um, so we definitely try to go where audiences are and meet them on their own terms. But first party data, especially as it relates to newsletters, uh, is a huge consideration for ours.
Um, it was definitely a big driver in the MindStream acquisition, how we think about, uh, how we prioritize, uh, The Hustle, uh, Masters of Marketing, which is our marketing newsletter, and a few others because first party data is the currency.
Mm-hmm. Um, you can flex it in different directions, to your point. You can enrich it. Uh, you can use it to market other media products, other channels.
Um, you can use it, um, to, um, retarget audiences through a paid manner. Um, I just saw it as so much incremental value that, um, you just don't get from, um, rented platforms like- Yeah...
YouTube or Spotify, et cetera. Um, okay.
Going back to the creator topic, uh, the, The Webbys were on my mind, um, because I [chuckles] was scrolling your LinkedIn and I learned that your wife was the president of the Webby Awards- Yeah. That's right. Yeah...
up until recently, worked there for 14 years. Yeah. Um, and I was interfacing with the Webby people a lot earlier this year. Um, I-- We were promoting in the newsletter, uh, applications for their...
It was their first year, um, with creators as, as an award category, and I thought that was really interesting and the way that they approached that. But obviously I'm always really interested to see how people- Yeah...
define what is a creator.
And what's interesting to me here is, um, like how the relationship between independents and like traditional, or, or traditional media companies, or not even just traditional media companies, but companies with a lot of capital that can fund these things like HubSpot, right?
Yeah. Versus like, like would you say... Or I mean, as I was looking at this, there's like, I think My First Million was, was up for some Webby Awards, and then there was- Yeah...
like, uh, um, Shannon Sharpe's podcast was up for a Webby Award, and then there was a couple others, um, or a few others. But to me that was like- Yeah...
there's a conflict there where it's like My First Million sure, like maybe are Sam and Shaun creators? Maybe. Is, is Shannon Sharpe a creator?
I don't know, 'cause he, it was a famous, you know, football player and now- Yeah... he works for SP- or I don't, I don't know. I think he was part of the ESPN network. I think they've cut him now. That's right.
There's a bit of a controversy there. That's right. Yeah, yeah.
But all this being said-It's really interesting to me how an organization like that, um, that, you know, gives out these awards that are these legitimizing- Yeah...
things, how they choose to define what is a creator, and, and it really... I'm, I'm still not sure what the answer is for me, where I'm like, does a creator have to be this independent person?
I don't- And then once they join a, a media company, then they're just, then they just are an employee of a media company? Does that even matter? I mean, yeah, I don't think so.
Because, you know, I think, look, I think we're all gonna have different definitions of it. Yeah. And if you were to ask Sam and Sean, they would 100% viscerally disagree with being labeled as a creator. Yeah. Um,
but I think, you know, the definition that we all have, um, every creator's gonna have a different definition as well. Yeah. And so I think what's great about the Webby Awards, obviously, is they...
As, like, with the creator category, they just recognize the people that have been able to, again, like, take what they're best at, most passionate about, the expert at, and translate that- Yeah...
into outsized influence, oftentimes independent of, you know, major, um, corporations, right? Like, oftentimes on their own or outside of like a traditional media company or a traditional institution. So, you're right.
Like, we were up for it. Unfortunately, uh, we lost. Um, and I asked my wife about that. She was like- [laughs] How about, how about it now? I can't help you anymore. She's like, "Sorry, I can't help you."
Not that she ever did. But, uh, but yeah. [laughs] Yeah. She's... Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, next year. Next year. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be... I'm really, well, I'm really interested to see next year how it evolves, right?
Like, that's- Yeah... I think the first year, how they define it is, is, okay, cool. But let's see how it's consistent, how it changes next year. And I was talking to- Yeah... to Jesse Feister, who's, who- Yeah...
runs the organization there. Yeah. Um, and he, he was saying like, "Yeah, we're... I mean, obviously, it's gonna change. It's, it's such a, such a fluid thing."
Um, one thing I wanted to ask you is y- you in 2010, you know, still, you're a few years into your media career. Yeah. Uh, but it's, it's, it's at the beginning. I think you are still at Vice or you're just leaving Vice.
What do you think, like, if you were, if you were to talk to 2010 you and, and, and tell him something about how the media industry has changed, what would be most shocking to him? Yeah.
I think if we're talking about 2010, uh, I think just the, the fact that websites probably are [laughs] aren't as big of a deal as they once were- [laughs]... and that
o- like, over-leveraging yourself on a web strategy is very shortsighted. Again, different moment in time, and the strategy worked, and the, m- you know, the b-
uh, you know, the ad model was completely different as well. Yeah.
Like, you know, advertisers weren't spending as much money on, you know, YouTube as they are today, or with independent creators as they are today, or on newsletters as they are today, and that's all dramatically changed.
But I think having, having that foresight of like, hey, it's 2010. If you just diversify and, like, really sink a lot of energy and calories into just building more moats around- Yeah...
your media brand so that whenever 2024 or 5 rolls around and like, you know, uh, AIOs roll out and your search traffic is decimated and everyone's on YouTube and Reddit and other platforms and, uh, ad dollars are not what they used to be, you have other ways, other lifelines, right?
Yeah. Um, and you know, if you look at Vice today, it's definitely a much different version of what it was back in 2010. Yeah. That's for sure. Uh, one last thing. Yeah. Um, let's say there is a B2B creator.
They've got an audience of 50,000 on a newsletter. Yeah. Maybe they're even, you know, making a profit on their time. It's, it's just them. They're succeeding.
Um, how would you advise them on whether to keep, keep going it alone or take in investment money or even be acquired? Oh, go on it alone for as long as you possibly can.
Like, you want, you want as much leverage as possible. You don't wanna dilute yourself. You don't have to worry about other partners. Having help is nice. Yeah.
Being a solopreneur is a very tough job, and it can get very lonely and get very stressful. And obviously, there is the, [sighs]
the desire to potentially, like, distribute some of that responsibility and stress to other people, but you don't have to bring on partners or investors to be able to do that.
You can work with other talented creators or freelancers to be able to support your strategy.
And then once you get to a certain scale, it's completely untenable to continue to sort of like grow and expand and also do all the BD and the finance. Yeah.
And so at some point you probably will have to bring on, uh, investment or a partner or sell. But I would just say, like, probably hold on to independence for as long as possible. That makes sense.
This, this reminds me of one other definition of, of creator I have, which is that, like, it's a media entrepreneur in that a creator is somebody who holds all the risk and all the upside, right?
Like they have all- Totally... the equity in their business, and I think that's a pretty definitive part of being a creator because it's about, it's about the incentives and what motivates them. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, this is exactly it. Uh, like, and at the same time, it's like you are a business operator, but the business is you. Yeah. And it's your expertise and it's your proprietary insight and information.
And, you know, to start to dilute that with other people that aren't you starts to sort of, I think, like dilute the message and the narrative around your media brand, but also it just complicates just the overall exit strategy once you do decide to exit.
Yeah. Um, and I guess if you are a B2B creator looking at exiting, maybe you wanna talk to HubSpot. Yeah. I mean, look, we're always open for conversations, for partnerships.
Um, and so, you know, we have a fantastic, uh, creators team. Um, so you should definitely reach out. Sick. Well, we will end it there. Um, Jonathan, is there anything else- Okay...
you wanna, you wanna plug before we get out of here? Mindstream.news, uh, subscribe if you aren't. They're on Beehiiv. Best AI newsletter in the market. Um, Inbound 2025, San Francisco, September 3rd.
Uh, if you're in town, go to it. Um, and then, you know, stay tuned. We got a lot of huge announcements coming out of HubSpot, but also HubSpot Meeting in the next couple months. Perfect.
Uh, thank you again, and listener, we will see you next week.
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